Monday, April 18, 2011

Hinged plastic eggs are so great to play games with. Any dollar store will have them this time of year. Go stock up! Here are three matching games I played with my kids this afternoon. Version One: Basic Matching Game *fill plastic eggs with any small item you can find around your home. Lego, small toys, hair elastics, whatever you can find. * To make it a little more challenging, I don't put the matches in matching-coloured eggs. *Set your eggs up in rows and columns so they are ready for the game to begin. *Take turns opening two eggs at a time to find the matching items inside. Version Two: Sound Matches*This time, instead of filling the eggs with whatever I could find that fit, I filled them with things that would make an interesting sound when the egg was shaken. Examples: rice, popcorn kernels, marbles, dimes, etc. *Again, I mixed up the colours of the eggs with the fillings. *Set out the eggs in tidy rows again. *Then take turns picking up two eggs and shaking them to find the matches.

*If you think you've found two eggs that sound the same, open them up to check if you were right.

Version Three:Matching Goodies

*In this version, when I filled the eggs, I filled them up with happy little surprises for the kids. Examples: mini eggs, cream eggs, jelly beans, smarties, marshmallows, chocolate chips, etc.

* Set up the eggs in rows, and rotate taking turns again.

*Of course, this time when they got a match we stopped to enjoy the sweets we found inside. Version Four: Prizes Matching Game *We didn't play this game, because I only thought of it right now as I was blogging these other ones. But wouldn't it be fun to go to the dollar store and get some little toys and gizmos to put in the eggs? Then when a match was found, they could keep it's contents as a prize. I've totally got to do that!